The placement and treatment of mentally disordered offenders is a most controversial issue within the mental health care field and the criminal justice systems of western societies. The matter is the subject of regular mass media coverage, with enormous public interest in high-profile cases.
In this field, forensic psychiatry has a crucial and difficult two-headed role to treat persons concerned according to the achievements of modern psychiatry and do justice to the individual needs of mentally disordered offenders on the one hand and to meet the expectations of the society and guarantee public safety interests on the other.
During in the past, there has been only limited international research conducted on these complex and interdependent issues. For the first time, this book provides a structured description and cross-boundary comparison of

• legal forensic frameworks 
• underlying key concepts
• assessment, court and discharge procedures
• routine practices in placing and treating mentally ill offenders
• human rights and patients' rights
• forensic service provision 
• outcome of legal procedures and forensic care (epidemiology) 

in the fifteen Member States included into the European Union before the extension in May 2004 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom).
The book contains essential information for anyone involved into the placement or treatment of mentally disordered offenders or interested in the topic.